CASE STUDY
Building Institutional Compliance Credibility at a Global Payments Scale-Up
A high-growth cross-border payments platform processing over $40 billion annually needed a Chief Compliance Officer capable of satisfying US banking regulators, managing a global financial crime programme, and earning the confidence of institutional banking partners simultaneously.
*All client engagements are conducted under strict NDA. Client details are anonymised.
The Situation
A San Francisco-headquartered cross-border payments FinTech had grown rapidly to become one of the leading platforms for international business payments in the United States, with operations spanning North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. The business had recently secured a Money Transmitter Licence in all 50 US states and was in active conversations with two US banking partners about deeper integration arrangements that would significantly increase the regulatory scrutiny of their compliance programme. The existing Head of Compliance had been strong at building the function during the growth phase but lacked the institutional regulatory credibility and the seniority required for the next stage. The business needed to move quickly. One of the banking partners had made a CCO appointment a condition of progressing the partnership discussions.
The Challenge
The brief combined requirements that rarely exist in a single candidate. The new CCO needed to have operated at Chief Compliance Officer level within a US regulated payments or FinTech environment. He needed to have directly managed BSA and AML programme obligations at scale, with cross-border transaction monitoring experience covering multiple jurisdictions. He needed to be credible in front of US banking regulators and capable of managing those relationships directly. And he needed to be willing to join a business that, despite its scale, retained a high-growth culture that would feel uncomfortable to a career bank compliance officer. The People team had spent three months working through their own network and a generalist recruiter without finding a credible shortlist. Valmont was engaged as a retained search partner with a defined twelve-week mandate.
The Approach
Valmont's initial market mapping identified a specific talent pool that the previous search had not adequately explored. The most credible candidates for this profile were not sitting in CCO roles at comparable FinTechs, most of whom were not looking and were locked into equity vesting arrangements. The deeper opportunity was in the layer immediately below CCO level at larger regulated financial institutions, specifically Deputy Chief Compliance Officers and Global Heads of Financial Crime at mid-size banks and payment networks who had the regulatory credibility and the institutional depth but had not yet made the step into a principal CCO role. These candidates were more accessible, more motivated by the opportunity, and in several cases a stronger long-term fit for a business that would continue to evolve rapidly.
Valmont approached thirty-one candidates across this profile. Fourteen entered into confidential conversations. Eight were taken forward to a structured assessment process that included a competency-based interview, a detailed written assessment of the compliance programme gaps they would prioritise on joining, and a reference process that specifically explored their regulatory relationship management capability. The assessment outputs were presented to the CEO and General Counsel alongside Valmont's own evaluation of each candidate.
The Outcome
The appointed CEO was a former President of a US-regulated Banking-as-a-Service platform who had led that business through its Series D and a subsequent acquisition by a global payments group. She had direct OCC relationship experience and had managed a founding team transition previously. She joined within fourteen weeks of Valmont's engagement and the banking licence application she inherited progressed to conditional approval within her first eight months in post.
The outgoing founder described the process as the first time an external firm had genuinely understood what the business needed rather than presenting names that looked good on paper.
The Outcome
The appointed CCO was a former Deputy Chief Compliance Officer at a top-tier US payment network with fifteen years of financial crime and BSA programme experience across domestic and international operations. Within his first ninety days he restructured the transaction monitoring programme, appointed a Head of Financial Crime for the APAC region, and attended his first joint meeting with the banking partner's compliance leadership team, which the CEO described as the moment the partnership conversation materially accelerated.
The banking partnership that had been contingent on the CCO appointment was formally signed six months after his start date.
In Numbers
31
Candidates
14
Approached
8
Assessed
11
Weeks to offer
A few words
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